out of town and out of context

first:
thanks to one and all (excepting gruber) for comments of encouragement in the face of myspace! we can take solice in knowing that one day all evil empires like myspace will end! (joking - but also not. i know of at least one marriage that had ended violently because of myspace and cannot imagine the number of lives of young women that have lost so much glory to sexualization at ages 10, 11, 12, 13 - so, it really is sort of evil)

second:
anyway, i'm off to a conference today, but had to leave you with these new quotes brought to you by trusty spies, bryan nixon and carin taylor.

"I've always wanted to be a bobble-head."
"Have you ever been thrown out of a bar? I have."
- From Sexual Disorders

"Especially at the beginning of the day, you don't know what pants I'm wearing."
"The Trotskyites wouldn't even take me."
"You've got cooties."
"Have you ever lusted and wanted to kill people? 'Uh-huh (yes).' Then we want you as our candidate."
"Anarchy, but no pink."
"I'm just going to wear bold shirts and marry someone who lives in a trailer."
"I would've had far more integrity and joy if I had picked up the whole doughnut."
"I was like, 'You have to take a test to get into law school? Bummer.'"
"I get to hallucinate on your behalf."
"I don't care about being incontinent."
"You might as well just have a hologram up here."
"You shouldn't be drinking cheap beer. There will be no cheap beer in the kingdom of God. Just get over Pabst Blue Ribbon."
"Frankly, I don't like God."
"I don't like anything I teach, and I know most of it's not true."
"I know people on crack who are happy."
"It's like putting me in a tutu. Does that help?"
- From Faith Hope and Love

Thanks Carin and Bryan - until next semester, this is the end of quotes out of context! Blessings as you spend the rest of the semester digesting and unpacking the depht that accompanied them - their context, if you will.

for the record:

i really really hate HATE myspace.

i invited my brother to my birthday by way of evite.

he doesn't do email anymore - just myspace.

so...if i want to communicate with him, i have to get a myspace.

i will not!

sometimes you give in, others you stand up and fight!

the seedling

as many of you know, my friend and neighbor, jen, and i are beginning a church/community on october 1st. actually, i'd say it's already started. i think it started for me on the night we gathered to pray for annie. regardless, check out the church cite.

i am a jeremiah...

I am a Jeremiah
Without the courage
To speak what I see
And the fire that keeps burning
Within my bones
Is slowly tearing you from me
And I’m caught between
Denying the message that keeps me weeping
And my hope
As I dream dreams for people
And show them what we can all live without
-Restoration Project

the previous post on my blog waas birthed in the frustration of answering the question: in what biblical narrative do i find what it has been for me to lead as a woman?

i wrote my answer - sort of but not really - today and thought I should share it with you:

These 400-500 words are heavey. Their process has been long, lonely, and tear-filled. They birthed a ranting blog entry before coming here to this page. My attempt to find the bridge from the questions to my place and my heart has left me sort of not answering the questions - but I'm as close as I can reach, maybe standing with my feet in the cold river I can't bare to cross as the icey water seems to penetrate my flesh and touch my bones with its icey fingers, letting me only sustain its current just long enough to get these rough 400-500, heavey words out - whether or not they meet the questions. So, here it is:
When I survey the long, arching stage of the biblical narrative, there is diversity of leadership. There is struggle; there is peace; there is pride; there is humility. There are those that I find myself in, those I admire, and some that I don't even really enjoy. When I stand before the stage, holding auditions for what narrative I find my leadership reflect in, few get call-backs and most of these come from the latter half of the Hebrew Bible. From this group of twelve or maybe fourteen, I have to choose just one. The decision is easy though: Jeremiah. Granted, this choice means that I am lonely, struggling, chastised, dreaming of a world where the poor and orphans are cared for, but quite certian this will not happen and that my search for a radical life will ultimately lead to radical isolation. Still, in Jeremiah, I have found my compatriot.
Then, another criteria is added: I am now looking for someone who reflects what it has been for me to lead as a woman. Here, everyone who made it to call back in this audition is sent home, not meeting the qualifications. I have to start auditions over and invite all those narratives of women leading back to the stage. As they come, the stage looks rather empty. I look deep into the faces and characters I see the faces of women who have seen Jesus resurrected but no one believes them. I can find myself in that, but something is missing. I see one woman who led through hospitality, serving her husband the king and leading to the salvation of her people. I look up to her and enjoy hospitality, but it's not a match. I see the Samaritan woman, the first missionary, and am absolutely inspired by the beautiful face of her narrative, but don't see myself. I see an unmarried, pregnant teen who brought forth and raised the very son of God. I weep as Iook into her worn but glad eyes, but this is not my story. As I come to the end of the line of auditioners, I begin to ask, where is the stuggling prophetess? Where is the female version of Jeremiah - surely, she must be even more lonely than he, but she must be here, somewhere. Then I realize that she is not here. She was never recorded in the seemingly diverse biblical narrative aresenal. I realize then and there that that encredibly lonely woman was me. Here I stand, as the coldness of the river begins to remind me that I cannot bare to remain in this question, realizing that the lonely call to a radical, prophetic life of loving the poor and subverting the Roman Empire we call America, is not only lonely as what it is, but it is lonely as a woman called to lead.
Quickly, I step out of the icey river and towell my ankles off. I put on three or four pairs of wool socks by watching the video my roommate rented last night and watched without me as I attempted to answer these questions, to regain some sense of heat. I step away and struggle to forget the cold of the river and the loneliness of that empty stage and under-attended audition, but as tears continue to pelt my cold cheeks, I know I will never forget that cold or that loneliness because this is the cold and loneliness that God has called me to and all I have left to hope is that God will be enough company, that I can find myself, as a woman, in God, and that just maybe, I'll find someone else to stand in these cold waters with me.
In the end, these heavy words are actually near 800 (I apologize for my verbosity). These 800 miss the question, but they are still the only answer I have to give. Maybe some day I'll find the question they match, but for now, I leave them with you to take as you will.

what i would write if i knew how...

i am, and have been, sitting at my computer, staring at it. i don't know where to start, but i know that i need to post something.

i want to tell you, readers, how costly it is to lead as a woman. i want to show you my scars and tears. i want to reveal how much shame i feel with regard to my call, how much anger i have for that shame, how much shame i have for that shame.

i want to tell you how fear floods my heart everytime someone asks what i'm studying and how angry i am that men never have to fear that.

i want to tell you how i wanted to end my journey toward starting a church when our lone man in leadership felt a call away from the church, how i didn't want to engage the fact that two women are starting a church and how i both envied and hated two well-lovede friends who are men starting a church and who surely never stumbled over the question, "we're two men - can we start a church? where could we find a woman to start it with us? will anyone come to a church headed by men? what will my brother think? how do i tell my extended family that i'm a man pastoring a church without a woman over me?"

i want you to see that, when asked to write about a narrative that reflects what leadership is like for me as a woman, i broke down in tears because the biblical narrative stage is desolate when it comes to leading women. women lead by washing feet and by being prostitutes harboring spies and by following their mother-in-law and marrying a kinsman redeemer, and by beaing beautiful and making dinner for the king - her husband. i identify with jeremiah, but there is no great, tortured prophetess.

i want you to know how afraid i am to write this blog entry - how i'm afraid of your reaction, afriad that you will think i am overly emotional about the subject, afraid you will voice support and live nothing in response, afraid that i'll reach out only to be left even more alone - which is, with few variations, how the story goes.

i want to tell you the story of the first time i admitted my call to someone - after harboring it for four years - on a youth group retreat - on my 16th birthday - only to be left weeping, knowing that my calling, unless it was to marry a pastor and not to be one, was from the devil and not from God. i want you to see the roses my dad sent me for my birthday wilting as they are pelted with the salt-water of my flowing tears. i want you to know the jovial smile of late night adolescent-girl goofing off that was lost in the violence of the church against women.

i want you to know that, at the very same church, my brother's call was celebrated - and that i had to watch that and that i couldn't be happy for him - only envious that he was celebrated as i was chastised.

i want you to be with me in the moment that i saw a twenty-something white american christian man walk down the hall as though he owned the world and, in that second, hated all white american christian men because they all own the world and and they don't see the cost - they don't see my tears - they voice their support then go on living on the oppression of women.

i want you to know how ashamed i am for feeling oppressed and for the moment i saw men that way.

i want you to know how deeply i wish i could just get married and be an at-home mom and abandon my calling. i want you to know that i have tried to. i want you to cry with me over the fact that i have tried to abandon a call simply because i am a woman.

but how do i tell you these things eloquently, so that they are all in one piece and so that you will read this and think better of me? how do i begin to hope that you might see me and grieve with me? where are the words i so often weild to bring you on a journey with me? in my rawness and desperation, they seem to have disappeared leaving only these broken fragments of a life-time of being shamed.

back by popular demand: dan lincoln

quotes of out context via a first year spy, carin taylor:



"I'm not suggesting that you hit your clients."

"You are a baboon and I am not."

"...shake it like Shake n' Bake."

"We want these little pagan animals not to create havoc in our 3rd grade classrooms."

"Americans are honest. We didn't steal the land from anybody."

"He went (fell) down like music teachers are apt to do."

"I am a poor Rafiki."

"'You are going to participate in cannibalism with my body.'"

"So you've learned to run against horsemen. Let's see how you do against horses."

"You're going to watch Law and Order or read the Bible. Most of the time, I would say watch Law and Order."

"It's not that I have a language, but I just have to talk. With words."

"You think I read my books?"

"Somebody needs to come to the side of you with one sweet whack and say 'you're a jackass.'"

"If you have a car you've kept for 200-300,000 miles, you are doing harm to this nation."

"You are a fool. You look like a fool and you smell like a fool."

"Don't slaughter the cow on their plate and expect them to dig in."

"If you're going to be that drunk, keep trying to mount the horse."

"Don't cross me, because I'll shoot you like a stray dog in an alley."

"How do you love when you're a killer? It's a problem."

"What changes the heart? A Jimi Hendrix offeratory."

"You are a scary dude or dudette."

to the victims of 911 and of the US government

above is a picture of a palestinian woman sitting in the rubble of her home, demolished by the israelis on september 11th, 2001.

i know many of you have been awaiting a promised new edition of quotes out of context. tomorrow, your hunger will be satiated with the quotes collected by a first year faith hope and love spy. today however, i want to direct your attention to a beautiful call to mourn from one of the leaders of the house church i was a part of in boston.

please visit dr. james' blog and join him (and now I) in his holistic, reverent and beautifully patriotic mourning.

Consumerism is the opiat of the people.

Bill Mahr claims that religion is the thing that stops people from thinking.
Neitze said that religion is the opiate of the people.
They are both wrong.

Commercialism stops people from thinking.
And, consumerism is the opiate of the people.

We think this gihad is between Christian faith and Islamic faith. It is not.
It is between American consumer-driven, self-protective, money grubbing religion and Islamic faith.
Do you believe that our scantily dressed women would offend the Islamic world as much as it does if we were people who lived and loved like Christ - caring for the marginalized and caring for the orphans and widows rather than as global litterers, treating people and countries as our trash cans as we attempt to keep our small park of the world clean from any unpleasentries and allow our ambition and self-seeking lust for wealth drive us? Do you think our lives would be so sexually driven if our hearts were compassionately living?

It is not religion, but religions all-too-easy submission to the love of money - religion's deep sleep in the lullabye of the American deam - blind to the rest of the world - that stops thinking and births this war of terror.

the long, arduous journey to say "get well"

a close friend of mine is in the hospital across the country (please pray for her).

i wanted to send her flowers, so i called the hospital (located in the south) to find out her room number. the conversation that follows is no exaggeration. only her name has been changed.

automated voice: thank you for calling southern general hospital. to continue in english say one.
me: one.
automated voice: i'm sorry, to continue in english, say one.
me: ONE!
automated voice: i think i understood. did you say "one"?
me: yes.
automated voice: alright, please listen carefully to our new automated system.
- automated system list of numbers to push goes on and on -
automated voice: for patient and visitor information, say "eight."
me: eight.
automated voice: I'm sorry, did you say "pound star"?
me: no. (then i moved the phone away from my mouth and said to a friend, "i said eight and the thing thought i said "pound star."
automated voice: I think i heard you that time. Did you say "R-E-P-E-A-T"?
me: no!
automated voice: I'm sorry, i did not understand you.
me: eight.
automated voice: I think you said "eight"
me: YES!!!!!!!!
automated voice: Alright, let me transfer you.

- long time on hold -

operator #1: Patient visitor relations, how can i help you?
me: hi, i'd like to order some flowers for my friend Jane Doe, and i'll need her room number
operator: let me transfer you.

operator #2: hello, patient information, how can i help you?
me: i need the room number for my friend Jane Doe, that's Jane D-O-
operator #2: Wait, is that first letter O or R?
me: D
operator #2: R?
me: D
Operator #2: N! or R!?
me: D!
Operator #2: N!?!
me: D as in dog
Operator #2: N.
me: no, D
Operator #2: ok
me: ok, so it's D, as in dog, O as in operator,
Operator #2: so i have 2 Os?
me: No, i don't think you are understanding: D-as-in-dog followed by O-as-in-operator, E-as-
Operator #2: O, E
Me: No, the letter D, as in dog! the letter O, as in operator! the letter E as in early!
Operator #2: Ok, let me just check here. She's not in here.
Me: Um, yes, yes she is.
Operator #2: No. Either than or you are spelling it wrong.
Me: No, I'm spelling it right and she is there. Would it be possible for me to speak to someone else?
Operator #2: No. It's just me. You're going to have to call me back after you get the spelling.
Me: That is the right spelling. Thanks, bye.
-hang up - call Jane to get her room number - no answer - decide to try the hospital again

Operator #1: Patient visitor relations, how can i help you?
Me: I called a minute ago and you transfered me to patient information and the man over there didn't understand me and kept telling me that my friend isn't there or that I'm spelling her name wrong, but she is there and i am spelling her name right.
Operator #1: let me look that up for you. i am sorry about that.
Me: Thanks, her name is Jane Doe. J-A-N-E last name D-O-E.
Operator #1: Jane Doe. No problem. And, how old is your son?
Me: (thinking, how backward is the south when someone names a son Jane?) SHE is my friend, and SHE is 25.
Operator #1:Ok, her room number is 7708
Me: Thank you so much.

By the time i finished, it had taken an hour to order flowers.

happy new year!

september is like new years to me. i was born in september. school, which i've been in for almost two decades, starts in september. my mom's a teacher, so the rhythm of summer has always been unpredictable, like my friends, ben, patricia, and hawkeye's band, beats per minute. they called themselves this for irony's sake as there was no rhythm at all, only lots of fun things that make noise. meanwhile, september is a return to friends, patterns, familiarity, and a steady rhythmic life. thus, on my equivalent of new years eve, the night before school started, i found myself as excited as a kindergartener the night before school started. i woke up wanting to scream, "Happy New Year!"

this summer carried with it clarity and new vision. this year has the potential to be one of great formation and academic stretching, as i believe i have found the question that will gestate either into a book or into a phd thesis.

so, for all of you who read my blog, happy new year, and i look forward to journeying with you this year.

also, is this a season of new year for you? how do you mark it? is there a pattern to this month? are there favorite rituals (like the cashing of student loan checks :))?

for me, my birthday followed (i say followed because i no longer have a birthday only the anniversary of my 24th birthday) the start of the new year, making the gathering of those i love an important part of the start of things. this year i had thought of not having a party, but as school started and i felt familiar rhythms, i realized that this is a part of my calendar...so there will be a party - an anniversary party - but a party none-the-less. do any of you have similar events or traditions that make life feel like home?

out of context retrospective

i am inerrupting my blog break to introduce my blog's face lift and to reflect on last year.

i hear that the new students have a faith hope and love intensive this week so...in remembrance of last year, here is the best of quotes out of context.

new students, any of you who read this and decided to take notes on the funny stuff dan says this week, please email direct, accurate, but out of context quotes to eyeheartseattle@gmail.com.

“Go back to 8th grade and be weird. Just be on the edge and wear fringe.”
“You will likely be stoned often.”
“I was paying $50 a day for the privilege of having my child abused by someone else.”
“Jeremiah has just discovered his penis.”
"Look, I don't like the Bible."
"Please take out your check books and write a check to the Dan Allender yatch fund."
“The absolute most logical question [for me to ask] was ‘Am I pregnant?’”
“People in this church will say things that hurt you, that do you harm, and you will need batteries.”
"[There is] too much libido in chocolate chips."
“Do you love the way thorns and thistles feel as you weed your garden? If the answer is yes then we are in the realm of sexual disorders.”
“Sit here and watch Jerry Springer with me.”
“The task of a woman is to be a nuisance to her children.”
"I got into a 15-minute discussion with a fellow urinator."
"Odd and deleterious things are coming out of [my] nose and mouth."
"You shouldn’t be afraid of death. You should be afraid of me."
"I can smell your breath."
“If you could do four jumping jacks, it would be clear.”
"That’s the problem with parenting, its that it takes an extraordinary amount of time."
"Actually, I am a holograph tonight."
"If there is a way that you can come to eat one less shoe, you will have done well."
“Watching Dr. Phil and Oprah together [is pornography].”


and my all time favorite:

“bray like an ass but bring some excrement so we can see what we might grow.”